In this dissertation I will present and test a model linking actual applicant-interviewer demographic, human capital, and cultural capital similarity to an interviewer's recommendation to hire. Actual similarity is proposed to influence an interviewer's perceptions of similarity with an applicant. These perceptions, in turn, lead to the interviewer's perceptions of the applicant's Person-Organization (PO) fit and the applicant's Person-Job (PJ) fit. Two main mechanisms are proposed to mediate the relationship between an interviewer's perceptions of similarity and an interviewer's perceptions of an applicant's fit: liking and negative behavioral expectations. Lastly, both an interviewer's PO and PJ fit perceptions of an applicant are posited to influence the interviewer's recommendation to hire. A total of 118 interviewer-applicant dyads contacted through the Career Center Office at a University located in the southwestern United States participated in the study. Results partially support the model. An interviewer's perceptions of similarity with an applicant are positively related to an interviewer's fit evaluations. An interviewer's negative behavioral expectations of an applicant mediate this relationship. Furthermore, perceived similarity is positively related to an interviewer's liking of an applicant. In turn, liking is positively related to an interviewer's PO fit perceptions. However, liking does not function as a mediator between perceived similarity and fit evaluations. Finally, fit evaluations are positively related to hiring recommendations. I discuss the main implications of the study as well as strengths, limitations, and future research.

This thesis consists of four papers about the Minkowski measure of asymmetry and the Minkowski (or Banach-Mazur) distance for convex bodies.We relate these two quantities by giving estimates for the Minkowski distance in terms of the Minkowski measure. We also investigate some properties of the Minkowski measure, in particular a stability estimate is given. More specifically, let C and D be n-dimensional convex bodies. Denote by As(C) and As(D) the Minkowski measures of asymmetry of C and D resp. and by d(C,D) the Minkowski distance between C and D. In Paper I, by using a linearisation method for affine spaces and affine maps and using a generalisation of a lemma of D.R. Lewis, we proved that d(C,D) < n(As(C) + As(D))/2 for all convex bodies C,D. In Paper II, by first proving some general existence theorems for a class of volume-increasing affine maps, we obtain the estimate that under the same conditions as in paper I, d(C,D) < (n-1) min(As(C),As(D)) + n. In Paper III we consider the Minkowski measure itself. We determine the Minkowski measures for convex hulls of sets of the form conv(C,p) where C is a convex set with known measure of asymmetry and p is a point outside C. In Paper IV, we focus on estimating the deviation of a convex body C from the simplex S if the Minkowski measure of C is close to the maximum value n (known to be attained only for the simplex). We prove that if As(C) > n - ε for 0 < ε < 1/δ where δ = 8(n+1), then d(C,S) < 1 + 8(n+1) ε .

This thesis consists of three papers on topics related to optimization and estimation of solutions of Riccati equations. We are concerned with the initial value problem f'+f² =r², f(0)=0, (*) and we want to optimise F(T)= ∫0T f(t) dt when r is allowed to vary over the set R(φ ) of all equimeasurable rearrangements of a decreasing function φ and its convex hull CR(φ). In the second paper we give a new proof of a lemma of Essén giving lower and upper bounds for the solution to the above equation, when r is increasing. We also generalize the lemma to a more general equation. It was proved by Essén that the infimum of F(T) over R(φ) and RC(φ) is attained by the solution f of (*) associated to the increasing rearrangement of an element in R(φ). The supremum of F(T) over RC(φ) is obtained for the solution associated to a decreasing function p, though not necessarily the decreasing rearrangement φ, of an element in R(φ). By changing the perspective we determine the function p that solves the supremum problem.

This study combines qualitative and quantitative procedures  in order to make possible a Most Different Systems Design (MDSD) analysis which systematically compares two countries in order to identify factors which play a role in coup d’état occurrences after the Cold War. By developing a systems framework that lays the ground for subsequent analysis, an encompassing view of the potential underlying conditions of the coup occurrence are taken into account. This systems framework is subsequently operationalized for a sample of 35 countries which all experienced coup d’état between 1990 and 2010. In order to use MDSD, the most different countries are identified using Boolean distances. Ethiopia and Honduras were found to be the most different and were compared and contrasted according to the systems framework. The study concludes that for coup occurrences in Honduras and Ethiopia, the lack of an external national threat, secularizing tendencies, and past coup occurrences played a major role.  Democratizing tendencies after the coups in both countries were a vital signal that the influence of global democratic norms does create incentives for countries to hold elections after a coup. Interestingly, the political system of the country and demographic factors such as ethnicity, religion and language did not appear as important for the coup outcome in these countries.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Mathematics

The analysis of the health condition in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) remains a qualitative process dependent on visual inspection by a clinician. Fully automatic techniques that can accurately classify the health of the muscle have yet to be developed. The intended purpose of this work is to develop a novel spatio-temporal technique to assist in a rehabilitation program framework, by identifying motion features inherited in the muscles in order to classify them as either healthy or diseased. Experiments are based on ultrasound image sequences during which the muscles were undergoing contraction. The proposed system uses an optical flow technique to estimate the velocity of contraction. Analyzing and manipulating the velocity vectors reveal valuable information which encourages the extraction of motion features to discriminate the healthy against the sick. Experimental results for classification prove helpful in essential developments of therapy processes and the performance of the system has been validated by the cross-validation technique “leave-one-out”. The method leads to an analytical description of both the global and local muscle’s features in a way which enables the derivation of an appropriate strategy for classification. To our knowledge this is the first reported spatio-temporal method developed and evaluated for RA assessment. In addition, the progress of physical therapy to improve strength of muscles in RA patients has also been evaluated by the features used for classification.

No description available.

Under the mechanism of natural selection, creatures are forced to evolve naturally in order to survive. Keen-sighted jumping spiders have long been considered as the main predation pressure of terrestrial arthropod. Many species benefit from mimicking the appearance of jumping spider. In this study according to the experimental data from Wang (2009b), a data analysis is undertaken concerning male Ptocasius strupifer¡¦s behavior to different subject groups, namely, male Ptocasius strupifer, female Ptocasius strupifer, male Plexippus paykulli, female Plexippus paykulli, Cataclysta angulata and Eugauria albidentata, so as to investigate the jumping spider mimicry of Eugauria albidentata. In this work, our interest is to compare the behavior of male Ptocasius strupifer on Eugauria albidentata with there of the other five groups mentioned above, and identify which one is the most similar to there of Eugauria albidentata . We use different statistical methods, i.e. likelihood ratio test, factor analysis and cluster analysis to evaluate the closeness of the behavior between different groups. According to the analysis result, it shows that the behavior of Ptocasius strupifer towards Eugauria albidentata is more similar to those of both female Ptocasius strupifer and female Plexippus paykulli. Moreover there is a wide discrepancy between Eugauria albidentata and Cataclysta angulata, although both of them belong to Musotiminae.

Shale gas has become increasingly important to United States energy supply. During recent decades, the mechanisms of shale gas storage and transport were gradually recognized. Gas desorption was also realized and quantitatively described. Models and approaches special for estimating rate decline and recovery of shale gas wells were developed. As the strategy of the horizontal well with multiple transverse fractures (MTFHW) was discovered and its significance to economic shale gas production was understood, rate decline and pressure transient analysis models for this type of well were developed to reveal the well behavior. In this thesis, we considered a “Triple-porosity/Dual-permeability” model and performed sensitivity studies to understand long term pressure drawdown behavior of MTFHWs. A key observation from this study is that the early linear flow regime before interfracture interference gives a relationship between summed fracture half-length and permeability, from which we can estimate either when the other is known. We studied the impact of gas desorption on the time when the pressure perturbation caused by production from adjacent transference fractures (fracture interference time) and programmed an empirical method to calculate a time shift that can be used to qualify the gas desorption impact on long term production behavior. We focused on the field case Well A in New Albany Shale. We estimated the EUR for 33 wells, including Well A, using an existing analysis approach. We applied a unified BU-RNP method to process the one-year production/pressure transient data and performed PTA to the resulting virtual constant-rate pressure drawdown. Production analysis was performed meanwhile. Diagnosis plots for PTA and RNP analysis revealed that only the early linear flow regime was visible in the data, and permeability was estimated both from a model match and from the relationship between fracture halflength and permeability. Considering gas desorption, the fracture interference will occur only after several centuries. Based on this result, we recommend a well design strategy to increase the gas recovery factor by decreasing the facture spacing. The higher EUR of Well A compared to the vertical wells encourages drilling more MTFHWs in New Albany Shale.

Prior to 1960, most countries over the world used traditional economic indicators to represent their social status. Economists mostly used Gross National Product, GNP, as a measurement of the social welfare standard of a country or a society. However, with the progress of the development, the traditional economic indicators were unable to follow the progress of social welfares. Therefore, it made economists hard to measure the status of social welfares. Sen (1977) thought that the development of human beings is not restricted to the increase of average disposable incomes only. He thought that people should use the indicators with more information to measure the distinctive diversity of welfares. Bauer (1966) first stated the social indicators as a measurement of social status and trends. Then, the so-called ¡§Social Indicators Movement¡¨ was aroused by Bauer¡¦s theory. As a result, to measure the development of a society entirely, people could determine the development from the medicine, health, economy, environment, and welfare aspects. In the researches about social developments, there were many discussions in building indicators of social welfare, quality of living, basic fulfillment, and development of welfare. The research is trying to establish a system of social indicators to measure the development from every aspect and selecting the social indicator index with representative indicators as a measurement of society development. Moreover, this research would analyze the systems of social indicators in Taiwan from 1982 to 2002 to see if the government made an appropriate allocation of resources in the executions of related policies. The research refers to 20 related indicator systems in Taiwan and overseas as their times of quotes and principles of selecting indicators to sum up 9 probable indicators. Then, the Principal Component Analysis method and the Varian method are adopted as research methods to abstract factors. Moreover, there are two abstracted factors. One is economic and environment factor and another one is medical welfare and unemployment factor. The research uses weighted method to find out the synthetic indicators in Taiwan from 1982 to 2002. The weighted multiple gained from factor analysis for the two factors is 0.8353 and 0.1647. Based on the data mining and analysis from second information, three scores were acquired, economic and environment factor, medical welfare and unemployment factor, and entirely performance. Each of these three scores shows the trend and the change year by year. The last, according the result from this analysis, the policy and recommendation was brought up.